Conventionally, a fishing reel which winds the fishing line onto the spool as abovementioned, is called a spinning reel and is well-known.
The spinning reel has a box-like shaped reel body comprising a front wall and side walls. A tubular shaft and the spool shaft are insertably supported through a through bore provided at the front wall and project outwardly therefrom, the tubular shaft carrying at its axial end the rotary frame, the spool shaft carrying at its axial end the spool. A handle shaft having a handle is supported to the side walls at a right angle with the tubular shaft and spool shaft. The reel body houses therein a transmission mechanism for transmitting rotation of the handle to the rotary frame through the tubular shaft.
The transmission mechanism comprises a master gear supported onto the handle shaft and a pinion on the tubular shaft, so that the pinion engages with the master gear to increase rotational speed of the handle and transmit it to the rotary frame.
In order to reciprocate the spool shaft longitudinally of the reel body simultaneously with the rotation of rotary frame, a reciprocation mechanism is provided within the reel body. The reciprocation mechanism comprises a traverse groove provided at the outer periphery of a portion of the spool shaft within the reel body and an engaging member provided at a portion of the tubular shaft within the same, the engaging member engaging with the traverse groove to allow the spool shaft to reciprocate longitudinally of the reel body following the rotation of tubular shaft.
The reciprocation mechanism and transmission mechanism are housed within the reel body and occupy therein a space for both mechanisms, thereby making the reel body large-sized, larger in weight, and expensive to produce.
The reciprocation mechanism can reciprocate the spool shaft more smoothly than a mechanism using a link which is pin-connected eccentrically to the master gear, but is so constructed that the master gear once rotates to allow the spool shaft to once reciprocate, which causes synchronization of rotation of the rotary frame with reciprocal movement of the spool shaft. As a result, the rotation of rotary frame leads to a limit in a line-winding position on the spool, which will create the problem that the line cannot be wound uniformly throughout an axial length of a trunk of the spool.